 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2018) |
| |
| Company type | Wheeled-transport Specialists |
|---|---|
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | 1868 |
| Headquarters | , England |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Albert and Peter Vince |
| Products | Trucks, buses, car-derived vans |
Vince & Son operated for 120 years as wheeled-transport specialists in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England.
Founded in Ely as coachbuilders in 1868 [1] by John Orviss Vince (1846–1923), they carried on a local business as constructors of all types of horse-drawn vehicles through to the inter-war period, when they began to include early motor-buses (‘Vince’s Golden Queen’) in their trade. At this time the business had passed on into the hands of J. O. Vince’s son Albert Edward Vince (1885–1954), and after the Second World War, on again to Albert Edward’s sons Peter (1915–1987) and Albert (aka ‘Bill’, 1920–2004). During this latter period of 40 years, the business became specialists in ex-government vehicles. The surviving brother ‘Bill’ Vince ceased trading as Vince & Son in the late 1980s. In their final incarnation under Peter and Bill’s direction, Vince & Son maintained links with their origins in the title ‘Vince & Son Motor Engineers and Coachbuilders’.
The name 'Vince & Son' was revived in 2010, by descendant Edward Vince, for an art direction and graphic design studio. [1]
J. O. Vince, the original ‘Vince’ in the company name, served a teenage apprenticeship which, as well as coach-crafts and blacksmithing with his father in Downham Market, Norfolk, included assistance with the production of Ely Cathedral’s nave ceiling paintings by its Victorian restorers. Each of the three generations of Vince & Son proprietors maintained the craftsman’s side of the coachbuilder’s art: John Orviss had to be able to build a cart from the ground-up and complete its decoration, his son Albert Edward carried on the complex paint-mixing, varnishing, coach-lining and upholstering skills into the motor age, and his sons Peter and Bill retained this knowledge. Bill Vince sold vintage vehicle parts, for about 13 years, up to 2003. [2]
The Royal Mews is a mews, or collection of equestrian stables, of the British royal family. In London these stables and stable-hands' quarters have occupied two main sites in turn, being located at first on the north side of Charing Cross, and then within the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
H. J. Mulliner & Co. was a well-known British coachbuilder operating from Bedford Park, Chiswick, West London. The company which owned it was formed by H J Mulliner in 1897 but the business was a continuing branch of a family business founded in Northampton in the 1760s to hire out carriages. In December 1909 the controlling interest in this company passed to John Croall & Sons of Edinburgh. Croall sold that interest to Rolls-Royce in 1959.
Renault Trucks is a French commercial truck manufacturer with corporate headquarters at Saint-Priest near Lyon. Originally part of Renault, it has been a subsidiary of the Volvo Group since 2001.
Dennis Specialist Vehicles was an English manufacturer of commercial vehicles based in Guildford, building buses, fire engines, lorries (trucks) and municipal vehicles such as dustcarts. All vehicles were made to order to the customer's requirements and more strongly built than mass production equivalents. For most of the 20th century the Dennis company was Guildford's main employer.
Strachan and Brown were an English coach building partnership and then a limited liability company from 1894 to 1974. The firm was originally founded in 1894 by Walter Ernest Brown as a sole trader. In 1896 S A Hughes joined and it became a partnership know as Brown and Hughes. In 1908 James Marshall Strachan joined the partnership with it being renamed Brown, Hughes and Strachan. In the partnership was put into liquidation in 1915. A new partnership with Strachan and Brown was formed that same year and lasted until 1928.
Harley Jarvis Earl was an American automotive designer and business executive. He was the initial designated head of design at General Motors, later becoming vice president, the first top executive ever appointed in design of a major corporation in American history. He was an industrial designer and a pioneer of transportation design. A coachbuilder by trade, Earl pioneered the use of freeform sketching and hand sculpted clay models as automotive design techniques. He subsequently introduced the "concept car" as both a tool for the design process and a clever marketing device.
A coachbuilder or body-maker is a person or company who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles. Coachwork is the body of an automobile, bus, horse-drawn carriage, or railway carriage. The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs. A vehicle body constructed by a coachbuilder may be called a "coachbuilt body" or "custom body".
Thrupp & Maberly was a British coachbuilding business based in the West End of London, England. Coach-makers to Queen Victoria they operated for more than two centuries until 1967 when they closed while in the ownership of Rootes Group.
Rolls-Royce Limited was a British luxury car and later an aero-engine manufacturing business established in 1904 in Manchester by the partnership of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. Building on Royce's good reputation established with his cranes, they quickly developed a reputation for superior engineering by manufacturing the "best car in the world". The business was incorporated as "Rolls-Royce Limited" in 1906, and a new factory in Derby was opened in 1908. The First World War brought the company into manufacturing aero-engines. Joint development of jet engines began in 1940, and they entered production in 1944. Rolls-Royce has since built an enduring reputation for the development and manufacturing of engines for military and commercial aircraft.
Southdown Motor Services was a bus and coach operator in East and West Sussex and parts of Hampshire, in southern England. It was formed in 1915 and had various owners throughout its history, being purchased by the National Bus Company (NBC) in 1969. The company fleet name was lost when it was acquired by the Stagecoach Group in 1989 but buses operated under that legal name until 2015 when the operating licence was transferred to another company within the Stagecoach Group and 1915 company became dormant but still owned by the Stagecoach Group.
Hooper & Co. was a British coachbuilding business for many years based in Westminster London. From 1805 to 1959 it was a notably successful maker, to special order, of luxury carriages, both horse-drawn and motor-powered.
John Fishwick & Sons was a bus company based in Leyland, Lancashire.
Abbott of Farnham, E D Abbott Limited was a British coachbuilding business based in Farnham, Surrey, trading under that name from 1929. A major part of their output was under sub-contract to motor vehicle manufacturers. The business closed in 1972.
Mulliners Limited of Birmingham was a British coachbuilding business in Bordesley Green, with factories in Bordesley Green and Cherrywood Roads. It made standard bodies for specialist car manufacturers. In the 19th century there were family ties with founders Mulliners of Northampton and the businesses of other Mulliner brothers and cousins but it became a quite separate business belonging to Herbert Mulliner.
J Gurney Nutting & Co Limited was an English firm of bespoke coachbuilders specialising in sporting bodies founded in 1918 as a new enterprise by a Croydon firm of builders and joiners of the same name. The senior partner was John (Jack) Gurney Nutting (1871–1946).
Silver Star Holidays is a coach operating company based in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, Wales. Founded in 1918, its primary operation is coach holiday tours. Local bus services in Gwynedd were run by Silver Star until November 2010, when they were sold to Express Motors. Silver Star also trades under the Welsh name Seren Arian, with offices is both Caernarfon and Wrexham. The company entered administration on 6 October 2011 and ceased operation, but resumed services under new management later in the same month. It is now owned by Alpine Travel of Llandudno.
The automotive industry in New Zealand supplies a market which has always had one of the world's highest car ownership ratios. The distributors of new cars are essentially the former owners of the assembly businesses. At the dealership level they have maintained their old retail chains in spite of the establishment of the many new independent businesses built since the 1980s by specialists in used imports from Japan. Toyota entered into direct competition with those used-import businesses refurbishing old Toyotas from Japan and selling them through their own dealers as a special line. The nation's car fleet is accordingly somewhat older than in most developed countries.
O'Gorman Coachbuilders was an Irish coach building company that traded under various names from the 1920s to the 1940s.
John Croall & Sons were a Castle Terrace, Edinburgh firm of funeral undertakers and carriage hirers founded in 1850 who expanded their business to include coaches, cabs and coachbuilding. In February 1897 the firm was incorporated as John Croall & Sons Limited. After 1960 ownership changed a number of times and the company was liquidated in 1992.
Bligh Bros. or Bligh Brothers of Canterbury was a British coachbuilder initially producing carriage and, in the 20th century, bodies for automobiles. Amongst the most famous creations by Bligh Brothers are the unique race cars known as Chitty Bang Bang, which inspired the book Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang by author Ian Fleming and the later film adaptation, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
